The 31-year-old man who fought with a Brooklyn building super who later died of an apparent heart attack has been released without being charged as an investigation revealed that a pre-existing medical condition may have led to the super’s death, the Daily News has learned.
His release comes amid conflicting accounts about what happened in the moments before the man and the deceased, 41-year-old Burim Havolli, began grappling with each other in the lobby of the Ocean Ave. apartment building in Flatbush on Wednesday morning.
Building residents and Havolli’s relatives said the two men argued and that the fight began after Havolli, who apparently felt threatened. attempted to restrain him hold him for the cops. The younger man’s father said his son, in fact, called 911 and was the victim.
“After an extensive investigation, there’s no evidence of criminality,” a police source said.
The Daily News is withholding the man’s name because he hasn’t been charged with a crime.
Kerry Burke / New York Daily News
Police investigate at 1199 Ocean Ave. in Brooklyn, where superintendent Burim Havolli died after an altercation with a man on Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2025. (Kerry Burke / New York Daily News)
“This allegation is total nonsense,” the previously detained man’s father exclusively told The News Thursday night. “I spoke to him, and he’s holding on. All he was trying to do was get this attacker off him. He was attacked.”
The father, who declined to give his own name for fear of retaliation, said that his son called 911 against Havolli as the struggle unfolded.
“My son waited there for the police. He made a call. He made a call about being assaulted by someone, and he waited there for the police,” the man’s father said. “When the police came, they arrested him.”
The man hit Havolli over the head with a cellphone as he fought the super off, witnesses and police sources said. Once cops showed up, the building super refused medical attention, but collapsed a short time later as he was about to take a shower. He later died at Kings County Hospital.
While the city’s Medical Examiner’s office has not officially determined a cause of death, a preliminary investigation revealed that one of the super’s arteries was severely blocked and may have sparked a fatal cardiac episode, according to a police source with knowledge of the case.
The man, who had according to some accounts blocked the lobby door with a stand-alone scooter on Wednesday morning was visiting someone in the building, which Havolli wasn’t aware of, the source said. But the scooter rider wasn’t committing a crime when Havolli confronted him, sources said.
A spokeswoman for the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office said that an investigation into Havolli’s death was ongoing.
Havolli’s relatives and building residents had initially speculated Wednesday that the man might have come into the building to steal packages left for tenants, although there is no evidence that was the case. The building has been plagued by package thieves in recent months, residents said.
The man had just dropped off his daughter at school and was in the building to visit a friend when he was confronted by the super, according to the younger man’s father. In cellphone video of the incident, the scooter rider can be heard saying he was in the building to visit someone, and denied he was stealing packages.
The man had been let into the building by another tenant’s child.
Havolli had just come into the building with his wife and 2-year-old son in a stroller when he saw the man with the scooter, sparking an argument, an eyewitness told the News. A racially-charged argument followed, according to witnesses and video shared with The News.
“Stop steppin’ to me,” the man yelled at Havolli, the video shows.
The scooter rider, who is Black, called Havolli a racist for wanting him to leave the building.
“I’m American!” he screamed, according to the video.
Havolli called 911. The altercation turned physical when Havolli grabbed the man, apparently trying to to hold him for the cops, the witness said.
“That’s when everything started, struggling back and forth, fighting,” the witness said. Cops ultimately arrived and took the scooter rider into custody. Havolli died later that day.
“He was very helpful to a lot of people,” the victim’s brother Qendrim Havolli said of the victim. “He helped people who came in for the first time in this country. He opened the door, helped them get clothes, a job. He never left anybody in the street.”
The scooter rider was held in custody for more than a day before he was released without charges.
“(It was) over nothing,” added the witness, still visibly distraught over the super’s death.
“He should have let (the suspect) go,” the witness added.
With Colin Mixson
